10 Steps To Open Government

One year after the federal Open Government Directive was released, the list of accomplishments is long: Detailed plans are in place, new Web sites have been launched, and more than 300,000 data sets have been released to the public. But how much of what's been done to establish a more transparent government--one that encourages collaboration between the public and private sectors as well as participation from citizens--is having a real impact? And what work remains to be done?

The Office of Management and Budget's open government scorecard, the feds' self-assessment, paints an overwhelmingly positive picture of the progress. Its visual dashboard, which grades 29 agencies across 10 categories, is almost entirely green, the color associated with "meeting expectations." In fact, there isn't a single instance in which one of the 29 agencies fails to meet OMB expectations in any of the categories measured.